


Hometown Welcome

by BrowncoatWhit



Series: The Adventures of the Jin Dui [28]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25699345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrowncoatWhit/pseuds/BrowncoatWhit
Summary: TheJin Duireturns to an uncertain welcome at her home port on Deadwood, and Captain Cooper worries about her coming meeting with Augustus Van Hooven, a local crime boss and the ship's owner.
Series: The Adventures of the Jin Dui [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/656808
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For more about the _Jin Dui_ and her crew, visit http://jin-dui.swartzer.com/index.php
> 
> NEW: translation pop-ups have been added for readers using their desktops to view -- just hover your mouse over the foreign word to view! (Sadly, the coding may not yet be workable for viewers using their phones or tablets)
> 
> See the note at the end of the fic for a full translation log.
> 
> ADDITIONAL NOTE: If you find the New Hope Mining Camp & its inhabitants to be deliberately & obviously similar to the location & characters of certain beloved HBO series created by the genius David Milch -- _hǎo a!_ You're right!

_DATE: 2514.October 4,  
Dock Bluff/New Hope Mining Camp, Deadwood  
Blue Sun Cluster  
9:27 a.m. local time; 12:27 Sihnon Standard Time (SST +3:13)_

The Firefly _Jin Dui_ settled onto the level meadow that was the blunt top of Dock Bluff. The sky outside was a brilliant morning blue and the wind from the ship’s engines flattened the tall golden grass. Fatima's hands on the controls were precise -- there was no jolt, only a gradual sense of settling as the ship came to a rest. "We're solid," Fatima said into the all-ship. "Welcome home."

 _Home?_ Cooper mused sourly as she leaned against the back of the pilot's chair to observe the landing. Yes, technically the mining camp of New Hope on the moon of Deadwood was the _Jin Dui's_ homeport, but if this were truly home, then why did Cooper feel braced for incoming fire?

"Putting the engines to sleep," came Hoss’s bass rumble over comm from engineering.

Sully had the co-pilot's seat, and he was listening to a comm receiver-bud in his ear. _"Shōudào,"_ he murmured into the mic, before turning to share with the captain. "That was Van Hooven's radio-man. The boss says welcome back and expects your report at your soonest opportunity. He's sending up some men to provide escort. He says not to step out of the ship unless they’re men you recognize as his."

 _"Shōudào,"_ Cooper muttered. She looked again out of the bridge windows, at the view that stretched down over the sluggish Shé Yǎo River and the ramshackle mining camp which spread out even further along its banks in the six months since the _Jin Dui_ had last left the world. _Enough sunlight, and even the camp itself looks pretty,_ she thought to herself. _Now. Who's expendable?_

There was no way to do that math and get an answer she was comfortable with. The ship had no replacement for their mechanic Hoss or numbers man Chang. Fatima was blossoming nicely into their best pilot, and while technically Professor West was their weakest, he had a whole ‘nother set of skills that made him valuable to the ship. Sully and Abby both had nerves Cooper would trust in a possible firefight, but they both had skillsets and business contacts the ship couldn't afford to lose. Carver was the obvious choice -- the former shipbreaker marine remained the ship’s real muscle and he was the one the captain wanted more than anyone else at her back in a hard spot. But truth was, stepping out that cargo bay door was going to be stepping into a _guaran-damn-teed_ hard spot, and if the worst here should happen, the ship would need Carver more than ever before. Truth was, only Cianan was expendable to the ship -- and if things went to shit for Cooper down in that camp, the young artist could only be more trouble to her than he was worth.

 _“Zhè gāisǐ dì dìyù,”_ Cooper muttered to herself in resignation. She shrugged, then squared back her shoulders and stood up straight. “Good job,” she said in belated praise to Fatima, then “Sully, you've got helm. Keep a watch on the trail up the bluff, and crew absolutely stays a-board unless I radio in otherwise. _Dŏng ma?"_

Raquel Sullivan’s dark eyes cut to her, eloquent with worry. “Captain,” her first mate said, lodging a proper protest. Sully already had a journeyman’s knowledge of how it was on Deadwood -- and a survivor’s knowledge of the brutal way things often worked out in the mining camp of New Hope. “Who’re you taking with you?”

“Making this a solo trip,” Cooper replied, holding her XO’s stare. “Just in case the boss-man is feeling tetchy, _dŏng ma?_ I’ll be safe enough. Van Hooven’s sending an escort to get me in past Darius and his men. And if the boss-man feels the need to raise his voice a little and pound the table, well… I don’t want anyone else’s hair-trigger escalating it. We’ll be good, just so long as I can get Van Hooven to appreciate the little tidy profit margin we’ve made for him during this last six-month run.”

Sully’s expression did not lighten, but he nodded shortly. _Smart man,_ Cooper thought with a warm wash of approval. _Sully is a savvy son-of-a-bitch. I won’t regret leaving him this ship and the care of the souls aboard her, if it has to come to that._ "If there's trouble, you gotta always just deal straight with Van Hooven," Cooper told him then, directly, while she still had the opportunity. “Never lie to that bastard, or he’ll gut you for sure. And keep a close watch on scan, as well as on those security cameras. We don't want any sticks of dynamite thrown at this old girl again."

Sully managed a faint smile of agreement, no doubt remembering their first departure from the New Hope camp half a year ago now. Unwilling to say more, Cooper clapped him on the shoulder in parting, then gave Fatima a sunny smile, without considering the oddity of that expression from her face. “I’ll wait for Van Hooven's escort down below," the captain said, limping for the bridge hatchway.

"Aye aye," Sully said, while Fatima had stopped in the middle of her post-flight checks and was watching Cooper with a look of profound worry. "Captain?" the pilot said, understanding far less of the situation on hand than Sully did -- but understanding enough to know her worry wasn’t misplaced. “Stay safe.”

"It's Deadwood, so it’ll never be safe," Cooper replied, sounding as nonchalant and cheerful as she could. She paused in the hatchway arched and gave them a confident nod before departing the bridge. "But like the boss man likes to say, it’s a helluva place to make your fortune.”

* * *

Being at the end-run of their Blue Cluster tour, the _Jin Dui's_ cargo bay was nearly empty. They had packed up all of their rim run jumble sale goods into their sole shipping container and suspended it from the cargo bay’s ceiling, clearing out the middle of the bay floor. Shifted up into an orderly row against the starboard hull were three pallets of burlapped seed they were taking on to Greenleaf and a few crates of odds and ends they hoped to unload at the Eavesdown Docks. The port side of the cargo bay had been cleared for the incoming cargo they expected to take on from Van Houven -- provided Cooper survived her performance review, of course. 

Cooper set that thought aside as she made her way down the cargo bay stairs. Carver was waiting below for her at the standing control panel for the airlock hatch, with his old three-legged dog Odin at his heels. The scarred former marine had his six-guns strapped on either hip and his favorite AR slung over one shoulder, while his expression was impassive as ever. Cooper tried to keep her own face equally so.

“Van Hooven’s sending me a security escort,” she told him. “So your orders are to sit tight and keep the ship safe. I caused Darius to lose precious face, and I absolutely expect that dragonhead to come at us directly while we’re downworld and back in his reach.”

The unscarred side of Carver’s face twitched into a frown at her words. Cooper continued headlong, wanting to get her orders set and herself out of that cargo bay door unencumbered. “Sully’s got command, but let me stress -- absolutely no one is to leave this ship after I step off that gangway, _dŏng ma?”_ she said sternly, giving her security officer her flattest and most direct stare to let him know she expected her command to be followed to the letter. Carver’s expression did not shift, leaving Cooper with the impression that this was a battle she’d won…

… which was when she heard the thunder of combat boots on the gantry overhead, incoming from the forward mid-deck corridor...

“Carver!” called Hoss, bounding down the midbay catwalk in two long strides. “Carver, you got your guns? _“Rite te reinga_ we’re letting Coop off this ship alone -- Van Hooven is gonna _kainga tona ngakau!”_

Cooper didn’t need to translate Hoss’s native tongue to understand his meanings. Neither did Carver. The man’s expression didn’t change, but his weight seemed to shift into forward onto the balls of his feet, while the dog at his heels looked up in sudden alarm and heaved itself upright, clearly game for whatever shitstorm his master was headed into.

Cooper sighed and heaved a silent curse heavensward back toward the bridge, suspecting her XO had just played her with a single call to engineering. “Hoss, don’t get dramatic--” she began to protest, pivoting partially on her cane to shoot her old friend a sharp look.

Hoss’s boots hit the cargo deck. The big man was wearing a pair of long pants and a dark, heavy leather coat, and in addition to Lola, his heavy shipbreaker wrench, he had the ship’s 8-gauge from the armory in his grip. It looked like a child’s toy in his hands, unlike Lola’s shining silver self. “Looks like Van Hooven’s sending up a truck,” he said, pointing with Lola at the security camera’s vid display on the standing cargo bay door control panel. “That’s Ito and Earl, enit?” he asked.

Cooper took a sour look at the camera feed. Their vid feed showed her an old farm truck was rumbling up Dock Bluff’s unpaved track, the tall golden grass flattening beneath knobby, mud-splattered wheels. The driver’s face was not visible, but the two armed men in the truck’s flatbed were. “Those two guys are Van Hooven’s two most trusted soldiers,” she said for Carver’s benefit. “And rot it all, Hoss -- you’re staying here! Both of you boys are staying with the ship. Chances are, Van Hooven is thrilled with the profit we’ve earned him and everything’s just fine. And if it ain’t -- well, if Van Hooven’s panties are in a tight enough twist, then your getting turned into tomorrow’s bacon along with me ain’t gonna do our new Captain Sully a whole helluva good, _dŏng ma?”_

Hoss and Carver looked at one another, then Carver shifted so that his AR came up into an easy-carry hold. Hoss just stood solid, legs braced and his weapons folded across his chest. “Yeah, Coop, we hear you,” the ship’s mechanic said, refusing to give ground. “But if you’re going, we’re going. You can fire me if you want,” he added then, with a hint of a smile. “But then good luck finding a better mechanic anywhere in the Blue Cluster to replace me with.”

 _“Biǎ oziyǎ ng de!”_ Cooper snarled, knowing that Hoss had called her bluff. Anyone else on the ship she would consider sacking on the spot at that challenge, but she could no sooner lose Hoss than she could chop off her good leg. She rounded on Carver, half-expecting/half-hoping her security officer would honor the ship’s chain of command. An order was on her lips when she saw Carver already toggling the ship’s comm.

“Professor West,” Carver said grimly into the comm. “You’re acting point on security in my absence. Hoss and I are accompanying the Captain into town. Get down here to the cargo bay controls to stand watch. Any crew that tries to leave the ship, you knock them out and hogtie them. Anyone else tries to come aboard? Two to the chest, then one to the head. Am I understood?”

“What-- me?” was the surprised bass response from the comm. Then -- _“Hǎo a!”_  
came West’s final response, and Carver shut off the comm connection with a stab of the finger. “Sit. Stay,” he commanded Odin. The dog, at least, did as he was told, dropping his hindquarters to the deck with a grumbling sigh.

“Then that’s settled. Shall we go?” Hoss suggested, a victorious smile breaking across his face like the sunrise. “Let’s not keep the boss-man waiting if we don’t have too.”

* * *

The truck was a familiar one, with a dented front end and a bio-fuels engine that always had a bit of spice and starch smell to its exhaust, like deep-fried egg rolls. Cooper nodded to the driver, recognizing the woman with the permanent mendhi tattoos on her hands and dark cropped hair. The two armed men standing in the back of the truck were even more familiar. “Hey Doc!” called Earl cheerfully, while bearded Ito gave her a polite tip of the hat. Both men were carrying long guns, but their weapons were held easily and their attentions were mostly beyond the _Jin Dui's_ captain and two crewmen, scanning the landscape for signs of trouble rather than including Cooper and her companions into that possible expectation of threat. “Welcome back to the world,” Earl added in his thick drawl, as Hoss jumped up nimbly onto the flatbed and reached down to pull Cooper up beside him. “You owe me five creds, Ito. Looks like the Doc done brought the ship back in all in one piece.”

Cooper accepted Hoss’s help, needing it to get up onto the truck with any shred of dignity. “In one piece and on schedule,” she retorted, moving to sit down on the raised wheel well, her back braced against the metal side of the truck bed. Hoss crouched down next to her one knee, making himself a whole lot less of a target, while Carver jumped up and took a defensive stance at Cooper’s other side. Ito thumped the roof of the cab once, signaling the driver to get started. The old truck wheezed into motion, making a wide turn in order to head back down the beaten trail toward the camp below.

“You ain’t wasted away I see,” Earl said to Hoss, and Cooper felt some of the tension she had been bottling up inside begin to evaporate at the cheerful, teasing tone in the man’s voice. Earl Pickett had been Van Hooven’s right-hand man since the two had been swinging axes for the lumber that they built the Lonesome Dove saloon out of, years back when the rest of the New Hope mining camp had been little more than a handful of tents stolen from the nearby Alliance re-education camp of the same name. Cooper had spent a year and a half as one of Van Hooven’s neighbors and partisans in the camp -- she had learned to recognize Earl’s moods and demeanor, and if Earl was relaxed enough with her and her crewmen now to pick up his needling of Hoss right where he had left off six months ago, then it was unlikely that Van Hooven was enraged over the _Jin Dui's_ captain’s performance.

Hoss seemed to pick up on that as well, and was beaming as he patted his flat stomach. “I worked off a few,” he agreed. “How ‘bout you? How you been hangin’?”

Earl Pickett was a middle-aged man of middle height and a beefy build; when he smiled, his dark eyes were nearly lost in his full cheeks. “Long ‘n loose ‘n full of juice!” Earl replied good-naturedly, before turning his attention to Carver. The man’s smile narrowed into something more predatory and less easy-going as he sized up the former marine. “Where’d you find this one?” he asked Cooper. 

“Carver joined us out in the Kalidasa Cluster,” Cooper answered, giving Carver a warning look. Earl liked to needle the competition until they cracked and exposed a weakness, at which point he’d pounce like a hound on a bone.

“He any good?” Earl continued, still eyeing Carver

“Damn straight he is,” Hoss answered, before Cooper could. “I’ve never seen a faster gun or a surer shot.”

“Browncoat or Alliance?” Earl asked Carver directly, swaying as the truck lurched through a series of big bumps, as the trail from the bottom of the bluff joined up with the deep ruts of the main thoroughfare leading into the camp. 

Carver ignored the question, instead watching the traffic on the road they’d joined. “Carver served with the 13th Orbital Mechanized Marines,” Cooper supplied, taking pride in her crewman’s former unit even if Carver seemed unwilling to do so.

“Odin’s Hammer?” Ito said, speaking up for the first time and clearly impressed by that tidbit of data. Cooper was pleased to see it -- while Earl was the right hand who had been with Van Hooven the longest, Ito was the deft knife from left, without doubt the sharpest blade in Van Hooven’s cutting block and the employee Van Hooven most trusted as a forward observer. That the bossman had sent Ito out as Cooper’s escort into town, instead of Earl’s regular partner Bobby, had not been lost on Cooper, and she wanted to leave Ito in particular with the best possible impression of the _Jin Dui's_ security officer.

“I got me a good bunch of hires,” she said, knowing that whatever she said in Ito’s hearing would wind up in Van Hooven’s ears verbatim. “I might have found most of them by luck, but they make a solid team. They’re good folk. Trustworthy. I’m lucky to have them aboard, and couldn’t ask for a better crew.”

“The _Jin Dui's_ sure doesn’t look like the same ship,” Ito said.

“That’s because we’ve been showering her with the love and attention she’s needed!” Hoss grinned. “You know how bad off she was when Lehmen and his boys had her. We’ve got her running smooth now and purring like a kitten. We jury-rigged what we had to at the start, but we’ve sunk everything we could into old replacing parts, including nearly a full rebuild on the life support systems and a full replacement of the primary comm units. We’ve finally gotten the chem balance stabilized in the algae tanks and all of the bugs out of the C02 scrubbers. And you won’t even recognize her on the inside -- a lot of elbow grease and a little paint have gone a long way toward making her as comfortable as your old granny’s kitchen.” Cooper suspected Hoss was trying to impress Van Hooven’s men, but her mechanic’s pride in his work and in his ship still shone as honest. “I know you saw how bad it was before, Earl, because of the mess you made of the old crew. You’ve gotta come back aboard for a slice of shoo-fly pie and let me give you and Van Hooven a tour of her now, to see what all we’ve done for the old girl.”

“I’m sure the boss will enjoy that,” Earl replied, with a meaningful glance toward Cooper that she could not decipher. Carver had caught that look as well, and was watching at Earl now with an intensity that made Cooper uncomfortable.

“So tell me, boys, what’ve we missed? How did the June elections turn out?” she asked, looking to turn the conversation into a comfortable null zone.

Earl laughed a deep belly laugh, while Ito gave his narrow smile of amusement. “Brandhorst won as Mayor,” Earl said.

Cooper laughed in shock. “Oh hell no! That damp-palmed coyote? No way!”

“Yankton bivouacked a bunch of soldiers up in Kingfisher Meadow. Word is, they were paid 10 Alliance cred per vote. Block lost his sheriff’s badge to Soapy Smith as a result. Pissed Block off so much to be beat by a cheat, he and Yao chained the jailhouse doors shut and made Soapy grovel before they’d finally give him the key. Block and that pretty wife of his have since up and left town. They’ve got a little ranch over on Redwater Creek now, and he’s talking about setting up a fish hatchery or some such. Yao’s still running the general store, and just got a new mill built upriver. He’s got more faith in the local farmers than they do.”

Cooper listened as Earl shared more of the local gossip while the truck rolled on into the town. She saw that another stout, two-story miners barracks had been built at this end of Main Street, joining the march of identical ducklings behind the original barracks building, a squat, four-stone brick structure that looked more like a warehouse than housing. The main thoroughfare of town stretched out beyond that original barracks, a single mostly-straight line that stretched past the river bend and then on up into the low hills half a mile away, where it reached the Hopespring Mine. The mine worked 24/7, three shifts a day, which meant large and regular migrations of miners from the barracks and back again, stopping along the way at business fronts up and down the thoroughfare to fill their basic needs. The main roadway was always crowded -- the question at any moment of the day or night was simply how thick is the traffic right this minute? The businesses catering to that predictable human flood were rustic log cabins or structures of rough-hewn lumber, with ragged canvas tents still filling out the alleyways in between the few irregular cross-streets. Sidewalks, where they existed, were also of lumber, and the main thoroughfare itself had never seen pavement so that there were rutted valleys where wagon wheels and truck tires plowed through in the dry months -- and in the wet ones, it was simply a sea of mud. Very few buildings had yet to see a lick of paint, but businesses vied for attention with brightly colored canvas signs and gaudy flashing solar-powered neon. Entrepreneurs without a storefront set up stalls along the thoroughfare, hawking bread, fresh produce, canned fruit, whiskey shots, bao, second-hand clothing, mystery-meat kebabs, counterfeit entertainment sticks, single cigarettes, shaved & flavored ices, and more in a variety that changed by the day. As the old farm truck joined the slow parade down the thoroughfare, Cooper found herself unsettled by the familiar scenery. She had spent roughly two years of her life tending to the citizens of this camp -- and about a year before that in the re-education-camp up in the hills above. The mingled sounds of conversation, pop music, rumbling truck engines, street preaching, lowing oxen, shouting, stuttering but high-pitched tuk-tuk engines, and the unmistakable combination of harmonium and tabla as they passed Bunny Sahib’s tea shop -- it was all overwhelmingly familiar. For a moment, it felt as if the last six months aboard the _Jin Dui_ had never happened. A heartbeat later, Cooper was wrestling against the impulse to point at the mouth of a passing alley and tell her companions _My cabin used to be up there…_ She shook the impulse off like a horsefly, and turned her attention forward, toward a large, two-story building on a corner they were approaching at the slow, sometimes halting pace of the thoroughfare traffic.

While Cooper had been away, the Bella Cucina Gentleman’s Club had been painted a rich, silk-sheen crimson, electro-brushed with a golden thread brocade. It had been the camp’s most impressive piece of architecture even before the expensive paint-job, a tall three-story mansion-like edifice with a wrap-around porch and a wrap-around second floor balcony, its smaller third floor balcony balanced over the wide-open set of first-floor main doors. That third floor balcony could only be accessed from the owner’s office and private suite of rooms, and it was Darius’s favorite vantage point from which to oversee the busy camp below.

Darius was standing there now, watching their truck’s approach with the keen, hooded eyes of a hawk. He was dressed in a crimson velvet jacket over a gold waistcoat, his silver hair slicked back over bristling dark brows. He was smoking a cigar, a lingerie-clad female whore on one arm, and a male whore in rich sapphire dhoti on the other.

“Cooper…” Hoss said quietly under his breath, spotting Darius on the balcony ahead of them.

 _“Shì,”_ Cooper said in acknowledgment. Aware of his captain’s locked stare, Carver had shifted to watch the man like he had acquired a target; Ito and Earl casually changed their positions as well, and Earl offered their boss’s nemesis a friendly middle-finger wave as the truck drew even with the Bella Cucina. From his high vantage, Darius gave them an ironic little smile, then cocked his finger and thumb as if it were a gun. He took leisurely aim at Cooper and “fired” as the truck pulled past his gaudy establishment.

“That man needs killin’,” Carver offered, half to Cooper and half to Earl.

Earl responded with an amused belly laugh. “Old Darius is a son-of-a-bitch pain in the balls, but he's our son-of-a-bitch pain in the balls. When Gus thinks he’s outlived his usefulness, then I expect I’ll have the pleasure.”

“Darius keeps people in this camp busy hating on him,” Ito agreed. “And Van Hooven makes good use of that. But you should know -- Darius has burned his own bridges hunting you and your ship. Word is he paid a steep price trying to catch the _Jin Dui_ over in the Penglai. Turned some of his business contacts into foes, maybe.” 

That earned a laugh of honest delight from Cooper, and she slid a grin sideways at Carver. “I’ll bet he did. Darius hired a ship and crew to come at us. It didn’t go well for them. Great for us, tho’.”

“Carver took out the whole crew, and we looted that ship down to the last roll of TP,” Hoss added with a grin of his own. “We got some really nice spare parts that way, like some replacement RCS thrusters and five standard broad-spectrum electromagnetic sensor units, two small comm dishes, a military-surplus optical scope, even a double-girder bridge crane for the cargo bay. Plus we finally got us a spare drive jump pack that way, too. It set our old girl up real nice, that did.” 

“Yeah, you’ll have to tell us all about that,” Earl said, chuckling in anticipation. Cooper glanced at Carver beside her. The former marine was still stone-faced, his attention remaining on the man on the balcony that was receding behind them.

The Lonesome Dove, Van Hooven’s saloon and base of operations, was another quarter mile down the filthy stretch of Main Street. The Dove had not changed at all, at least to Cooper’s estimation as she accepted Hoss’s help down from the flatbed of the truck and onto the wooden boardwalk. To call the weathered building “rustic” was being kind. The saloon was built of rough-hewn wood that had been whitewashed once… back in the first days of the camp. Once, the Dove had been proud to boast of being the home of the first glass pane windows in New Hope, gracing both the first and second stories of the saloon, the two front doors, and the second-floor balcony doors as well. Those glory days looked farther back in the past than just a few years ago, and there had been many a pane replaced due to misadventure since. Glass from the moon Haven overhead must still be cheaper than holo-windows, Cooper thought with some amusement. 

Cooper squared her shoulders, aware of Carver jumping down from the truck at her back and prepared to follow her lead. Hoss was waiting for her as well, as Earl and Ito followed Carver down from the flatbed. Cooper took a deep breath and headed on into the saloon.

_to be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The _Jin Dui_ returns to an uncertain welcome at her home port on Deadwood, and Captain Cooper worries about her coming meeting with Augustus Van Hooven, a local crime boss and the ship's owner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more about the _Jin Dui_ and her crew, visit http://jin-dui.swartzer.com/index.php
> 
> NEW: translation pop-ups have been added for readers using their desktops to view -- just hover your mouse over the foreign word to view! (Sadly, the coding may not yet be workable for viewers using their phones or tablets)
> 
> See the note at the end of the fic for a full translation log.
> 
> ADDITIONAL NOTE: If you find the New Hope Mining Camp & its inhabitants to be deliberately & obviously similar to the location & characters of certain beloved HBO series created by the genius David Milch -- _hǎo a!_? You're right!
> 
> (See the end of the work for more notes.)

Inside the Lonesome Dove saloon, Cooper was again swept by the sensation that the past six months had never happened. It was morning shift, which meant few customers and most of the whores were still upstairs in their rooms sleeping off their previous night’s work. The long, polished bar dominated the front half the saloon floor, with a scattering of wooden tables and chairs spotting the rest. Suliman still had his barber's chair in the corner; the walls still sported a collection of semi-prized buck heads; the hand-lettered canvas sign behind the bar still read “WhisKeY Shots” and provided a list of prices under “Fancy Drinks.” And behind the bar as well--

“The prodigal returns!” sang out the barkeep, a man of middling height with a dirty towel thrown back over the shoulder of his white shirt and striped grey suit-vest. It was the illustrious Augustus Van Hooven himself, a gentleman well past middle age, with a lined, sun-beaten face which had been dashing once and was now merely dignified. His dark hair was going silver and was slicked back, his mustache clipped -- but it was his prominent eyes that dominated his face, as dark and sharp as obsidian. His voice was rolling and rich, with an indeterminate accent that was often mistaken as being from the Core -- Londinium perhaps -- by those who had never been any further in-system than the Eavesdown Docks. Van Hooven rather enjoyed the rumors surrounding his world of origin, and Cooper knew he encouraged the most outlandish. “If it ain’t the good Dr. Cooper herself!” Van Hooven continued cheerfully. “Doc, it’s good to see you again! And my ship as well. I had begun to wonder the likelihood, seeing as you were a party to the second Battle of Sturges.”

The barbed words were delivered in a friendly enough tone of voice, but Cooper felt their edge. She planted her cane solidly between her feet and leaned on it, giving back measure for measure. “ _Nǐ hao,_ , Gus. So nice to know you missed me. I like what you’ve done to the place,” she countered, with a significant look around the Dove. “I see you’ve dismantled the titty corner -- don’t tell me you finally have decided to replace the faro tables with poker?”

“Oh hell no,” Van Hooven replied. “I’ve always felt poker slows down a joint’s action. Been a liquor, pussy and faro man my whole fuckin’ career, and ain’t like to change now.” Van Hooven turned his wily smile on Hoss and Caver. “But here the good Doc and I are, ready to settle the world’s problems. Either of you gents want a blow job while I entertain your captain upstairs? Not that I am offering personally. Earl will set you up with the piece of tail of your choice.” 

Hoss was laughing the offer off, while Cooper felt Carver’s seeking glance. She caught his look -- _Now?_ was his question, and it wasn’t the offer of prostitutes he was asking about. She saw the cold calculation in his eyes, and in that instant, Cooper realized that she had the power to unleash a coup d’etat. If she nodded _yes,_ Carver would not hesitate to remove the threats to _Jin Dui's_ captain and crew. She had seen how fast her former marine was with a gun. Carver would kill Ito and then Earl with his first two shots, and then Van Hooven with the third while the saloon keeper was only beginning to pull his shotgun out from under the bar.

As a surgeon, Cooper was accustomed to the immediate sense of power in having the life or death of a patient resting in her hands. But this… this was bigger and deeper and altogether different. Just like that -- Carver could order the murders of three men she knew and respected. The ownership of the _Jin Dui_ would go into dispute, but with Abby’s legal smarts behind them and enough credits to grease the right palms… it likely would not be a long dispute at all. And Cooper wouldn’t leave camp without Darius’s death as well -- in less than ten minutes, the political foundation of New Hope could be thrown into a tailspin, and it would be up to Cooper to suss out any larger complications on the fly. All she had to do was nod _yes_ to Carver now, and the powers-that-be which she had not thought before to question… she and her ship would be free of them entirely. 

The moment of opportunity for a hostile takeover passed -- maybe she was a coward, but she didn’t want her freedom at that price. Cooper held Carver’s eyes and gave him a barest shake of the head _no._ Then she turned on her heel and headed for the stairs, preceding Van Hooven up those steps for his office door at the end of the second-floor hall. “You’ve gone and gained a little weight, haven’t you?’ Van Hooven said, following her up the stairs. “Glad to see it. You always were too skinny.”

Cooper laughed aloud, the veiled insult having the opposite of its intended effect. “And you, boss, are looking more grey. What, you been worrying about me not being around to patch you up?” she retorted, and was rewarded by hearing Earl’s familiar guffaw from below them

A door opened as she reached the top of the stairs -- it was one of the whores, Dixie, and the crippled housekeeper, Míngzhū, both looking out and beaming at the sound of Cooper’s voice. “Doc Cooper!” Míngzhū exclaimed, her words slurred by cerebral palsy. “You want some breakfast?”

Cooper would have stopped to embrace her two friends in welcome, but Van Hooven’s hand landed hard on the back of her waist. “Why don’t you both see to the Doc’s boys downstairs, make sure they’re settled?” Van Hooven told his two other employees, propelling Cooper past them and toward his office door. 

Van Hooven’s office doubled as his bedroom, and had changed as little as the saloon floor downstairs. Cooper settled into the first of the two chairs across from Gus’s office desk, leaving Van Hooven to his own leather-cushioned throne, and waited for him to sit and pull open his desk drawer for the bottle of bourbon that always resided there. He began to pour two glasses but hesitated theatrically. “You have not gone teetotaller on me, now, have you?” he asked.

Cooper laughed again. “Hardly.” She accepted the glass of whiskey he pushed her way and downed the shot, then put the glass down and waited to see if he chose to refill it -- or to start shouting instead. Cooper was not surprised when the bottle stayed put and Van Hooven launched into a grievance. Even six months absent, she found herself still attuned to the rhythms of this world. 

_“Jian ta de gui!”_ Van Hooven yelled, fixing Cooper with a furious glare. “Do you remember the deal we made between us, when I gave you the keycodes to the _Jin Dui_? That you keep the schedule that I give you and that you bring no Alliance attention to my ship. No attention!” He snatched up a handful of smart-paper communiques from the corner of his desk, and slammed one down violently in front of Cooper. “So _gǎo shénme guǐ_ do you explain this from the Whitefall magistrate, accusing one of your crew of murder?” _Slam!!_ Down came another. “Or this for 5K -- that’s a full 5-fucking-thousand-creds! -- in fines from the Sturges dockmaster?!” _Slam!_ \-- and now a fistful. “Followed by Alliance queries all up and down the Cortex, asking if you and some of yours are members of that tribe of degenerate heathens the Dust Devils?” _Slam!_ One more final one crashed down on top the rest. “And seeking an AWOL member of your crew, for crimes as of yet undetermined?”

Cooper knew Van Hooven long enough to recognize the tactic -- the fury he was facing her with was (hopefully) mostly feigned, an attempt to intimidate her and put her immediately on the defensive. The worry that had been gnawing Cooper’s gut since Sturges bubbled away like soda water. She reached after the neglected bourbon bottle and poured herself a second glass. Instead of answering the accusations the dragonlord had launched at her, she posed a question. “Who was it that sold you out?” Cooper eyed Van Hooven knowingly as she knocked back the whiskey shot, then set the empty glass down on top of the pile of Alliance paperwork. “When Darius sent that skiff and all of those gunmen after the _Jin Dui_ and chased us off world, six months gone now, he overplayed his hand and exposed an asset. He had a mole in the Dove, didn’t he? Someone on his payroll, close enough to listen in to that last chat you and me had here, in your office, about how to run the crew hiring?”

Van Hooven’s dark eyes were flinty and narrow. He sat back in his seat, and reached after his own glass of bourbon. “It was Dolly,” he said, shifting in a heartbeat from fury to thoughtful. “Hated to lose her. That girl was a regular earner.” 

Cooper winced, surprised and truly saddened to hear it. Dolly had been a plump, doe-eyed girl hardly out of her teens, with a history of chronic UTIs. Cooper did not care to ask what Van Hooven had done in retaliation to the whore. Instead, she reached for the bottle and poured a second shot for Van Hooven. Then she reached into her coat pocket, and fished out a data cube. “Ship’s records,” she said, handing it over. “A full accounting of the past six months, financials and post mortems after each port of call. My crew and I have managed a profit over the past six months. We have brought the _Jin Dui_ back to you in much better shape than she was when she left the world. Sure, we earned more attention from the feds back on Sturges than is desirable -- but we got the _Jin Dui_ off of that dockside in the middle of a disaster, without taking costly damage, and that 5K in fines the portmaster slapped us with is far, far less than it would have cost to patch her up had we been caught up in the shitstorm that leveled the Sturges docks. I am not going to apologize for my crew’s survival, nor for my own. I am proud of all that we have accomplished so far. The _Jin Dui_ has spent the past six months pulling honest trade as an honest merchanter, and you’ve got a ship-share of the profits that prove we’re good at it. If you really are disappointed in the job I have done, then so be it. Just blame me, not my crew. They’re good folk, and they’ll continue to earn regular with the _Jin Dui_ , if you let them keep flyin’ her.”

Van Hooven studied her silently as he went for his third glass. He offered to pour for her as well and Cooper held up a hand, begging off. “You remain one ballsy broad,” Van Hooven finally said, shaking his head ruefully. “Her bank statements had the ship’s general account way up there, before that 5K fine at Sturges. The boys and I were layin’ bets on whether or not you had turned to highway robbery.”

“You can thank Darius for that unexpected bonus,” she replied, relaxing as she saw Van Hooven had settled in for the real business. Cooper gave him the quick report on the _Jin Dui_ ’s dealings up through the delivery job to the Bonnie Prince Charlie -- and how their encounter with the crew of the _Lucky Day_ had resulted in such an unexpected windfall. “The Flaming Arrow missiles alone came in at 300K on the black market. We traded most of that for replacement parts and cargo through my XO’s uncle on Beylix, but we banked as much of it as I could without triggering any red flags, and I bought up cargo in cash.” Van Hooven listened as she continued with a quick overview of the _Jin Dui_ ’s business dealings since -- he absorbed that flow of information without questions, his dark eyes busy with thoughts she could not decipher. 

“Your business acumen continues to surprise,” Van Hooven said when she had finished. “So tell me. What are your intentions next?”

“Provided you don’t end my job performance review by pulling your knife, cutting my throat and yelling at Bobby to fetch the sled, then I expect to oversee the ship taking on your cargo tomorrow and heading on back to Persephone as scheduled. After that -- we’ll make a visit to Greenleaf for refit, then balance our cargo prospects against what coordinates my numbers-man has determined we should investigate in search of some post-war salvage opportunities.”

“Lucrative. But only if you can find it. Your numbers man any good?” 

Cooper grinned. “My whole damn crew is good. But Chang is former Independence intel and his data is private reserve. And I’ve got experienced crewmen who’ll consider collecting salvage a cakewalk.”

Van Hooven sat back, chewing thoughtfully on a toothpick as he watched her with dark, hooded eyes. “And after that?”

“We’ll be back here in time for the next scheduled pick-up, for delivery again to our friends on Persephone. That’s my job, until you say otherwise.” Cooper sat back and considered her employer, then shrugged. “The _Jin Dui_ has become my home. But I realized something, coming back here today. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this place. This camp. The Dove. Earl and Ito. Dixie and Míngzhū. I missed you too, as miserable and mean as you can get. This camp is the only hometown I’ve got left to bring the _Jin Dui_ back too. I wish I’d been here last June, so I could have voted for Block as sheriff and for Yao as Mayor. I regret I didn’t think of pushing our schedule to be here -- not that my vote would have mattered, but at least I would have had the pleasure of casting it. Of making my mark and doing my bit for the home team.” Cooper made a face, suddenly embarrassed by her own sentimentality. “An hour ago, all I could worry about was that knife of yours, and being done for like Lehman. But Lehman earned his end. I haven’t. I think my crew and I have done you proud. If you don’t feel the same, then at least let me tell you that you want to keep Sully on as captain. He’s got years of experience under his belt flying as a smuggler in the Kalidasa & wider Rim. He’s got a wide range of valuable contacts as well, not the least of which being an uncle on Beylix who’s an information broker. Sully’s a canny operator, and the crew will stick to him like glue. Sully will do right by you. They all will.”

Van Hooven had sat back in his chair as well, mirroring her posture. “Bullshit,” he said, with a wry twist of his lips. “You’re telling me that if I murder you in that chair, that this first mate and the rest of this crew of yours, they’ll just obligingly remain in my employ, meek as lambs?”

Cooper frowned. “Yes, they --”

“Bull. Shit.” Van Hooven smiled at her. “You think I don’t know what loyalty looks like? Lehman was a shitbird, and his crew were all shitbirds. They would have followed any idiot who could put the beat-down on them and keep them in line. Which is why I had Earl kill them all in their bunks. But you’ve got two crewmen right now down there in the saloon, worrying about whether or not you’ll walk out of this room again. And just maybe I’d be a fool not to question my own long-term survival if you don’t.” Van Hooven continued to smile, apparently pleased by that threat. “Your boys are loyal to me only so long as you are. So what keeps you loyal to me, when you’re on the far side of the Verse?”

Cooper didn’t have to think about her answer. “You own my ship. That makes us partners in her success. And the more successful _Jin Dui_ is, the better I can provide for my crew. For some of us, she’s the closest thing we’ve got to home and family. So I’m going to keep fighting for her, to your long-term benefit.”

“All right then.” Van Hooven moved suddenly and with purpose, propelled out of his chair and across his office to the heavy, cast-iron block of a safe in the corner. Cooper could tell he was pleased, and felt a wave of relief. Van Hooven was occupied for a moment, kneeling on the floor as he fiddled with the keys and press-pad of the safe. It came open with a pressurized hiss of air. He returned to his chair with a small, crimson silk pouch in one hand. He placed it down on top of the desk and pushed it across to her.

Cooper picked up the pouch and tugged at its silk strings to open it. Inside were three halves of three green jade rings. She spilled them out into her palm and tried to make a whole match, but each half of a ring was of a slightly different size, and the jagged ends of each break were unique.

“Each of those rings represent a favor that’s due to our operation here,” Van Hooven said. “Sometime, in the coming weeks or months or years ahead, someone will approach you and ask for that favor debt to be paid. You’ll know them because they’ll have the other half of one of those rings. You will accommodate that request however you can, with no further questions asked. Do you understand?”

Cooper’s earlier sense of relief evaporated. “What if they ask for something crazy? Like for the ship to dump our cargo, or fly into a sun?”

Van Hooven nodded sagely. “This is a matter of face. For you. For me. For our entire operation. If you are asked to do something by someone who can provide you with the match for one of those rings, you will find a way to do it.” 

“Yes, sir.” Cooper put the jade halves back into the crimson silk pouch and slid the pouch into her coat pocket. “What is our cargo ETA while we’re onworld?” she asked.

“Tomorrow at dawn. We’ll have a full load of copper ingots again to mask the real cargo. Earl and Ito will oversee the delivery. And I’ll have a squad of men guarding Dock Bluff tonight. Word is that Darius may make another try to disrupt our business tomorrow morning, because I suppose he ain’t embarrassed himself bad enough yet.” Chuckling, Van Hooven rose from his chair again, and escorted Cooper to the door. “Now, let’s show your boys they can stop worrying and let all the whores say their howdies to you before the lunch-shift rush begins.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


**_00:01 a.m. local time; 03:14 a.m. Sihnon Standard Time (SST +3:13)_ **

Fatima sat her watch, listening to the ship’s sounds and enjoying the sense of well-being that always lingered with her long after performing her nightly _Isha'a_ prayers. The last of the late-night gathering in the _Jin Dui_ ’s galley had broken up not long ago, shortly after midnight. She heard Sully and Hoss and Tor as they all retreated to their crew cabins, while Abby, Chang, Cianan and Ginny went below to the passenger dorm. Soon, the only sound that remained was the occasional clatter from the galley, where Captain Cooper had to have progressed from the dinner clean-up to preparing meals for tomorrow. 

At Fatima’s feet, the old dog Odin raised his scarred head and looked toward the bridge hatchway. After several alert moments, the dog heaved a sigh and settled down again, his chin resting possessively on one of Fatima’s silk-slippered feet. The pilot reached down reflexively to stroke the dog’s torn ears, and the old creature pressed into her caress with a second, happier sigh. Fatima always knew when Ben Carver was jogging his endless laps around the cargo bay, up and down all of those stairs and gangways -- because that was when old Odin would take refuge with her for an hour or so each night. Fatima found it hard to believe now how much the scarred old beast had once frightened her. She adored the one-eyed dog, and enjoyed the quiet time he shared with her. 

The night was ending on a more comfortable note than the day had started. After the ship’s morning arrival on Deadwood, the _Jin Dui_ ’s crew had spent their day trapped aboard -- the Captain had not even allowed the goats and the ship’s temporary pony to be picketed outside for the day to graze, due to the risk of snipers. But Captain Cooper, Hoss and Carver had returned from the mining camp with a variety of supplies, including bags of flour from the camp’s new mill, baskets of a variety of fresh vegetables, a haunch of venison, and four fat, crisp-roasted Peking ducks. Cooper and Hoss planned a traditional three-course dinner feast around the ducks: first the crunchy skin with hoisin sauce, then the meat with paper-thin _bó bǐng_ wheat pancakes, and finally a creamy white duck bone soup, which Cooper made with additional udon, slivered scallions and minced garlic. Hoss had been busy in the kitchen as well, making three berry pies and three shoo-fly pies, having purchased a couple of extra pounds of local butter and a jug of local molasses while in camp. 

While those two cooked, Professor West had discovered that except for Sully and Carver, the rest of the crew had never played faro before, so Tor had taken over the long galley table to teach everyone else the rules. The card game was fast-paced and easy to learn -- it was hardly ever played in the Core worlds in favor of poker, but out in the Blue Cluster, faro was king. After the evening feast, the crew had just sat around together for a long spell, just talking -- Chang, Sully and Abby all shared stories about what had brought them to Deadwood originally, six months ago when the _Jin Dui_ had been first hiring crew, while both Cooper and Tilly had stories to tell about having lived under the roof of the Lonesome Dove saloon itself, Tilly for the weeks it had taken Cooper to arrange the girl’s passage on to Greenleaf, and Cooper herself from Tilly’s rescue from Darius until the _Jin Dui_ ’s captaincy became unexpectedly available.

Fatima had even spoken up a little herself, with a story about how she and one of her older brothers had trained a stray cat to welcome customers from the counter at her family’s bodega near the Nemeck Docks, back when she had been a little girl. With the _Jin Dui_ routed to Persephone after departing Deadwood, home and a family reunion she could never have was often heavy in Fatima’s mind. She had found that her crewmates warmly welcomed anything she chose to share with them, even though her childhood had been quiet and unexciting and thoroughly unexceptional. Most of them seemed to accept how difficult it was for her to share, and respected her reticence by not prying further. When young Tilly began to enthusiastically ask for more about Fatima’s family, Sully and Hoss both deftly came to Fatima’s rescue and distracted the girl. Her own brothers would not have been so protective of her comfort, Fatima knew. It left a glowing spot in Fatima’s heart to think that while she had lost her blood-relatives, that she had replaced them here aboard the ship. 

The after-dinner chat had lasted much longer than normal -- everyone but Carver had been smiling and happy in a way that felt a little forced. Everyone was on edge -- not the ship’s passengers Ciaran and Ginny, maybe, but certainly the crew were, and even young Tilly seemed to comprehend the ship’s situation here, and didn’t ask to visit the camp below the bluff. The entire crew had known, coming into Deadwood, that the captain’s performance review might not go well, and that her nemesis Darius might be waiting for another try against the ship’s defenses. Fatima was grateful that the meeting with Van Hooven was over; indeed, she had felt it profoundly unfair that the ship’s owner might even have been displeased with Captain Cooper. Fatima had, after all, had seen with her own eyes how badly maintained the _Jin Dui_ had been by the former captain and crew. Captain Cooper and everyone else aboard the ship had worked so hard these past six months and accomplished so much to make the Firefly safely operational again -- and profitable as well, to Fatima’s great pride. They had won over Van Hooven’s blessing now, Fatima knew, so all the _Jin Dui_ had left to do in the Blue Cluster was to make it through the night and take on their promised cargo in the morning without incident, and then they would be on their way back to the White Sun and Persephone. 

Fatima was still thinking about the long transit ahead of them to Persephone when one of the primary pilot station monitor panels went red. Fatima sat up abruptly from petting Odin, her eyes cutting straight to the ship’s boards even as a sensor alert began to buzz for attention. Something small and airborne was approaching at speed from the east. Fatima had a moment’s flash-back to the sound of explosives thundering against the _Jin Dui_ ’s hull, and the stink of burnt upholstery, cordite and blood suddenly was as fresh in her nose as it had been that day, six months ago, when the ship had last come under attack here on the bluff overlooking the New Hope mining camp. Without waiting to double-check what, exactly, the sensors were trying to make sense of, Fatima reached out and slammed a hand down on the _Jin Dui_ ’s all-ship’s comm, toggling it open before she reached for the general-alarm switch.

“Captain!” Fatima said into the com, while the ship’s general alarm began to ring from one speaker and the ship’s proximity alarms from another. On the pilot board’s primary monitor display, Fatima saw the bogey had decelled sharply as it bore down on her ship. “We’ve got incoming!” Fatima reached after power controls, waking the engines with a roar. “Sensors are picking up aerial movement without ID-transmit. Bogey has closed with us -- I’m prepping for emergency departure--” The board’s secondary screen went blood-red and began to flash with an incoming priority message from the planetary skyplex overhead. “We’ve been landlocked!” Fatima yelled. “Captain, we’ve been--” 

There was an explosion from mid-ship, and the harmony of bridge alarms were overwhelmed by the sudden, blaring claxon that warned all of a ship’s souls of the danger of a hull breach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATIONS:
> 
> nǐ hao = hello (Mandarin)  
> gǎo shénme guǐ?= What the hell? (Mandarin)  
> jiàn tā de guǐ = damn / dammit / bloody hell. Jian ta de gui is a more fleshed out version of the oath jian gui, which literally means to “see ghosts.” It’s just a catch-all phrase for when you’re displeased with something, sort of like in English “Damn.” Ghosts can be inauspicious agents in Chinese culture, so saying “see a ghost” implies underworld, Devil type stuff. Jian ta de gui has the same overtones, except it literally means “see your ghost.” (Mandarin)

**Author's Note:**

> TRANSLATIONS:  
> biǎ oziyǎ ng de = son of a bitch (raised by a whore) (Mandarin)  
> dŏng ma = understand? (Mandarin)  
> hǎo ba = okay (Mandarin)  
> kainga tona ngakau = eat her heart (Maori)  
> rite te reinga = like hell (Maori)  
> shì = yes (Mandarin)  
> shōudào = message received / copy that / roger (Mandarin)  
> zhè gāisǐ dì dìyù = damn it to hell (Mandarin)


End file.
